


Flick of the Wrist

by romanticalgirl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Knives, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 23:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17817611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: Bucky's just practicing. He's not showing off for Steve. At least at first.





	Flick of the Wrist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deisderium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/gifts).



“Watch this, Steve.”

“You’re going to cut your fool hand off and then where’ll we be?” Steve says without even looking up from where he’s carefully sketching the honest-to-god magazine ad that he’s drawing. Someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew somebody else and on and on had seen Steve’s art at the art college and commissioned him, so it was money in their pockets under his sure pencil.

“C’mon, Stevie. Just for a second.”

“Do I come down to the docks and browbeat you to watch me sketch while you’re working?”

“No. But you don’t like me watching you sketch. Said it makes you self-conscious.” Bucky watches his hand as he practices flipping the knife - forward, rotate his wrist, back - because if he looks up at Steve, he will cut his hand off most likely.

Steve is… distracting when he’s concentrating. Brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, tongue just peeking out between parted lips. Bucky squeezes both metal handles in his fist and takes a deep breath. 

“Just one time, c’mon.”

“Buck. I gotta get this done.”

“Just once.”

Steve growls, and it’s so incongruous between his slight frame and his deep voice. It’s also distracting, and Bucky’s very glad he’s got the knife closed, because something about that sound - like Steve’s about to dive into a battle - that should send Bucky’s instincts running for the nearest alley to pull Steve’s ass out of a fight does something else that he ignores very successfully to his stomach.

And lower.

“Fine. Show me. And if you cut off your fingers or hand, I’m gonna laugh my ass off at you.”

“Great. Me with no hand and you with no ass. What a pair we’ll make.”

Steve rolls his eyes, settles back in his chair, and crosses his arms over his chest. Bucky marvels at Steve a lot. So small and thin and his own body trying to kill him most of the time, and yet he’s personality and passion and pride and stubbornness and a giant to Bucky. One he’d gladly follow just about anywhere.

Across the street, across the city, across the state, across the country, across the ocean, across the world.

Straight into hell if he thought there was any chance Steve’d end up there. As it is, Bucky figures he himself will have to use all the Barnes charm he’s got to convince St. Peter to let him into heaven, because he can’t - won’t - let there be an eternity without Steve Rogers right next to him.

“I’m waiting. You gonna make me pay for a ticket to the Bucky Barnes side show of stupidity?”

“Catchy. You should write that down. We’ll go on the road. Make a mint.” Bucky clears his throat and looks at Steve. Steve raises his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed. “Yeah, yeah. Hold your damn horses. Pretty sure you don’t want me losing any body parts.”

“Well, I’ve gotten used to you having most of ‘em, so I’d probably miss something if it went. Though pretty sure Old Missus McGinty down the street ate her children during the potato famine, so we might make a coin or two if we sold her your severed thumb.”

“You are a sick and twisted fuck, Rogers. Now I’m gonna be sleepin’ with one eye open just in case you decide to sell me for parts. Jesus.”

“Are you going to perform this amazing feat or can I get back to work?”

“You’re such an asshole.” Bucky clears his throat again, straightening up and exhaling. “Behold.”

He flips open the knife - he didn’t ask Mick where he got it from, and he sure as hell didn’t ask anybody about the slaying of a whole ship from the Philippines and the cargo missing - and then flips it shut, warming up.

“You had to practice that?”

Bucky glares at Steve, who smiles as innocent as a lamb. Everyone thinks he’s the angel on Bucky’s shoulder.

Everyone is wrong.

“Okay.” Another deep breath and Bucky relaxes, feeling the knife like a part of himself. Out, rotate, in, out, rotate in. Out, twist, around. Again and again and again until he remembers Steve’s watching.

He glances up and Steve’s staring at Bucky’s still moving hand, at the flick of his wrist. There’s no noise in the room except for the slide and flip of the knife. Except for the heaviness of Steve’s breathing - the kind Bucky hears when Steve’s in bed and thinks Bucky’s asleep, not the kind that precedes an asthma attack. Except the sound of Bucky’s heart pounding hard. Steve licks his lips and Bucky loses all sense of time and space and reality until he feels the blade slice into the thick pad of his thumb.

He stares down at his hand, at the blood welling against the split of the skin, bright red. He looks at the knife, shiny silver darkened with blood, like it’s betrayed him. “Well, shit.”

Steve’s there before Bucky even finishes processing anything, grabbing Bucky by the wrist and tugging him over to the sink. He turns the faucet on and shoves Bucky’s hand underneath the weak stream of water. “I’m not going to say I told you so.” 

Steve’s voice is still deeper than normal, still breathy, and Bucky looks from his thumb to Steve. “You just did.”

“No, I very deliberately did not.” He goes and reaches on top of the icebox for the first aid kit and pulls it down, getting everything ready to wrap up Bucky’s thumb. “But if I were going to say anything, that’s what it’d be.”

“Well, it was still pretty neat, huh? And wait’ll I get better. There’s a whole lot of tricks you can do with ‘em.”

“You’ve only got ten fingers, Buck. Let’s keep ‘em attached for a while.”

Bucky wiggles his fingers while Steve tries to dry them off. “You like my fingers, Stevie?”

“Yeah. Can’t wait until you’re a grand pianist with the symphony. Now shut up, quit moving, and let me put this bandage on.”

“Huh.” Bucky grins up at Steve, and wonders now if he’ll ever see just _Steve_ again, or if the person he saw watching him flip the knife - the one who licked his lips and didn’t look away - is there now, superimposed over his best friend, changing him into something more.


End file.
